(Q): Hello. This may be a silly comment but I find it hard to find any information on what exactly and WHERE (important) are things preinstalled on my OpenSolaris. For instance I searched it to find that I have 3 SDKS for Java.
Randy Fishel (A): On OpenSolaris, OSS components that are available via OpenSolaris will be in the standard path. Things like Apache, Samba, etc. are not actually a part of OpenSolaris, and would need to be obtained separately, say from Blastwave, SunFreeware, or as source from the appropriate provider (apache.org, samba.org, etc.). In a Solaris distribution, most of them are found either in /usr/sfw or /opt/sfw, with Apache in /usr/apache or /usr/apache2 (1.3 vs. 2.0). OSS in /opt/sfw will have a package name that starts with SFW (i.e. SFWpine).

(Q): I want to do what I can to support the FSF and the GNU project. I'm not willing to compromise on Sun Hardware and Sol 10. However, all other aspects are open to use free software.
Josh Berkus (A): I don't know that using GPL software specifically supports the FSF; I'll bet they could use a donation more. Certainly it supports their political goals but so does the spread of OSS software in general, regardless of license. So please don't let the choice of license be the sole determining factor in what software you adopt. Of course, since I work on a BSD-licensed project, I'm a little biased in that regard.

(Q): Will the Solaris development team consider adopting OpenBSD/FreeBSD's security OS features, such as randomized stacks for buffer overflow and TCP SYN cookies in Linux implementation?
Randy Fishel (A): We won't likely be adopting either BSD or Linux implementations (certainly not Linux, as the licensing is incompatible), but would present our own implementations. Solaris already has excellent buffer overflow protection, and it is not obvious to me that SYN cookies actually solves any problems (but instead would clobber Solaris performance).

(Q): If I need to manage and exchange a lot of mails, is there a tool to help me to do that?
Josh Berkus (A): There are a LOT of open source mail tools. Sendmail, procmail, majordomo, mailman, Dspam, and more. Any of them could be suitable depending on what you're trying to accomplish. I'd advise you to do some more work on setting what your goals are, and look for a future Expert Exchange that deals with e-mail and collaboration.

(Q): What is the selection criteria that goes into picking the OSS that ships with Solaris 10? I am curious because it always seems that it is several versions behind the software offered in current Linux/BSD distributions. Are there security/stability motives involved in choosing the older versions, or does it simply take that long to bring a Solaris distro to market?
Neha Sampat (A): This is good feedback, thanks. Sun is looking at multiple distribution methods to help bring the latest and greatest of open source to the market as quickly as possible. If you have specific OSS criteria, please feel free to share your feedback with us at solaris10eval@sun.com and we can address your needs directly.

(Q): Will the fix for Perl Modules enable me to use the Perl Module RRDS for rrdtool? I have not been able to run the Makefile.PL for the RRDS module successfully up to this point. I am using Solaris 9.
Randy Fishel (A): I don't know if it will work on S9 or not. It has been a while since I have used S9, and I am not even sure what Perl distribution is running there. What I would do here would be to get a recent source distribution of Perl and the GCC from either Blastwave or SunFreeware, and build it myself.

(Q): Which is the main advantage to run an OpenSource App under Solaris instead of a Linux Operating System? I mean which Solaris 10 features should I consider will change my mind to start to use OS apps on Solaris?
Luojia Chen (A): Solaris 10 OS is the best platform for deploying MySQL. More robust — yet less expensive — than Red Hat Linux. And we had benchmarks showing MySQL performs 60-90% faster than Linux RedHat AS4 — details info is available at the MySQL website: http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/press-release/release_2006_19.html Solaris 10 OS includes more than 600 new features for all the applications, many of which are not available in any other operating system. For example, Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), Solaris Containers, Predictive Self Healing. I would highlight DTrace especially here, since it is very nice and unique tool to help analyze both application level and system level performance problems. Josh Berkus adds: The other difference is one of stability/reliability. Linux is about more radical and rapid development of new features, often at the expense of stability. For example, none of the Linux 2.6 kernels were stable before 2.6.10. Solaris is more about reliability than Linux is; I myself have two Solaris 8 web servers which have had no downtime in six years.

(Q): Is there a plan to bundle Stunnel and OpenSSL with Solaris 10 in future?
Neha Sampat (A): OpenSSL is in Solaris 10 today. Not yet certain about plans for Stunnel. Stay tuned.

(Q): Are the binaries available at the freeware site compiled with Gnu or with the Sun compiler?
Randy Fishel (A): If you are talking about SunFreeware.com, the components available right now are built with GCC. Blastwave applications are also built with GCC, and probably always will. However, we are working with the SunFreeware.com maintainer to have the applications able to be built with either. Also, the binaries that are installed with Sun Solaris that are installed in / usr/sfw are built with the Sun Studio compiler.

(Q): Are there differences regarding open source support for SPARC vs. x86?
Neha Sampat (A): Not at all. In our minds, there is only one Solaris, it happens to run on multiple platforms. In fact, the source code is common between Solaris on SPARC and Solaris on x86.

(Q): Are there any other open source mail programs do the same thing as fetchmail?
Randy Fishel (A): It depends on what you are looking for. If you are interested in getting mail from a mail server and put it in a local inbox, probably not. However, there are several tools that allow IMAP/POP access to a mail server. Evolution and Pine both allow IMAP, and both are available in a Solaris distribution (as well as fetchmail, if I recall properly).

(Q): Great starting list of supported freeware apps but is there a "todo" list that is being worked and is there a link to a timeline of when new apps will be added?
Fred Rehhausser (A): Yes and yes. We will have an update to this in the near future as we continue to roll out additional support of popular open source applications. In the meantime, if you have specific requirements, please send them to solaris10eval@sun.com and we'll address them directly.

(Q): I've been working with OpenSource on Solaris, (OpenLDAP, Heimdal, MIT Krb5, Cyrus SASL, Samba) one of the main hurdles I need to cope with is to keep updated with the OpenSource projects, I need to rebuild very often this applications, but this is needed to keep updated with the edge versions. This is a compelling reason to build from the source personally, so how the OS apps bundled with Solaris will handle the fast pace OS apps are updated?
Josh Berkus (A): For the open source projects which are officially bundled and supported with Solaris, we release patches when they are provided by the upstream project within a reasonably short time. For example, PostgreSQL released a patch to 8.1 yesterday and that will be available from Sun this week. There is obviously a delay built in to the process of a couple of days to a couple of weeks (depending on the urgency of the update). So if that's not good enough for you (which it may not be with security applications) then you do have a reason to build from source. For most users, though, it's more than fast enough. It's certainly faster than they're used to with proprietary software.

(Q): Are all the Open Source Applications which come with Solaris 10 (both supported by Sun and not supported by Sun) able to run in a non-global zone?
Randy Fishel (A): As of yet, I haven't found one that does not run in non-global zones. I have a couple of systems I run external to Sun that use zones instead of virtual servers, and all the applications I use work just fine in either. About the only thing that would not run in non-global zones would be things that need direct access to the kernel, such as kernel modules, or DTrace applications that trace the kernel. If you find an application that doesn't work, I am sure that the Zones team would like to know about it and provide a fix. There is a Zones community on OpenSolaris.org, you might ask or even join that community.

(Q): Is the ZFS that comes on open source Solaris 10 bootable?
Fred Rehhausser (A): Yes. In fact, there are a variety of projects in the community already happening around the use of ZFS. You can learn more at sun.com/solaris/zfs. There are some links in the right column of this Learning Center page that specifically demonstrate how some members of the community are using ZFS today.

(Q): What coding and documentation standards and distribution approaches do you recommend for open source applications developed under Solaris 10. In particular, I am working on Java applications that involve a significant amount of mathematics (so TeX would be ideal for documentation) and will be used on Windows, Linux, and MacOSX possibly in both classified and unclassified environments.
Randy Fishel (A): My recommendation is fundamentally whatever works best for you (at least for coding and documentation standards). As a long time developer, I find myself often using vi to write html/xml. And for distribution, if you are considering this as a free application, it can easily be put on Blastwave, and maybe even SunFreeware. A request could be sent to both sites.

(Q): Is the Solaris 10 and companion CD free to download.
Fred Rehhausser (A): Yes. Solaris 10 is COMPLETELY free and can be downloaded at sun.com/solaris/get. The software available on the companion CD is also free and can also be downloaded at: sun.com/solaris/freeware.

(Q): I need an open-source(preferably GPL) application to deliver OLAP cubes over the Internet. Any recommendations on development environment, how-to's, existing apps/suite. Thanks for the exchange!
Josh Berkus (A): Why do you care about the license? In any case, the only mature OLAP tool I know of is Mondrian, which is Java-based. It integrates well with PostgreSQL MySQL, JasperReports, and Pentaho, and is supported by some GUI cube design tools such as JPivot. Mondrian Project Home Page

(Q): I am currently doing development (net-snmp). I'd like to work with Open Solaris, but I'm still confused on how to compile and install it. I'd prefer to use something Sun-branded as opposed to Benelix or others. Where do I look?
Fred Rehhausser (A): You should be able to compile and install the source available on opensolaris.org, which is monitored by members of the Solaris community as well as Sun engineers. More information on building OpenSolaris source is available at the download site: http://opensolaris.org/os/downloads/. Additionally, the community is fairly active via online forums/discussions as well as global local user groups, so it may be helpful to direct some of your questions to the community for additional support.

(Q): Why do I have so much trouble with OSS compiling under Solaris 10, especially the linker. Problems (eventually overcome) with PHP and syslog-ng?
Luojia Chen (A): Which Solaris 10 build are you using? Please check the version of your OSS compiling, and I would suggest you update to the latest Studio 11 compiler with more bugs fixed

(Q): If we run open source software on Solaris 10 with Sun platform, what is the support level from Sun?
Fred Rehhausser (A): It depends. If the open source software is integrated into Solaris, there is likely to be support available just by purchasing a Solaris service plan. The list posted at: http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/ provides more information on which applications are supported by Sun and which are supported by the community. Also, Sun will be rolling out additional service offerings for open source applications running on Solaris in the near future.

(Q): Does Sun have any plans for a replacement for the Companion CD that allow for automatic updates or dealing with dependencies? I am thinking about something similar to Blastwave.
Josh Berkus (A): Yes, everything is moving out to Sun Freeware to allow for more rapid updates. We're also working on some sophisticated tools for managing your full stack of OSS software.

(Q): Are there any known issues running fetchmail on Solaris 10?
Randy Fishel (A): None that I am aware of.

(Q): I am considering using vnc which comes with 10 1/06. If I have problems or questions regarding it, do I contact Sun for support?
Luojia Chen (A): Yes, you can contact us for support.

(Q): I am looking into Open Source Applications for network / resource monitoring. Can you recommend any?
Randy Fishel (A): Look into MRTG. I have installed and used this for various monitoring applications. MRTG is is a scripting facility to display whatever collected information the user desires. Originally, it was intended for monitoring routers (the "R" in MRGT), but there are a lot of tools available for various other usages. I have been using it to monitor mail operations. A Google (or your favorite search engine) search for MRTG should not only find the tool, but some open source scripts that use the tool.

(Q): Where can I find a list of the Open Source Applications which come bundled with Solaris 10?
Fred Rehhausser (A): You can find the list of open source applications that come bundled with Solaris 10 at: http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/. Also, to learn more about running open source applications with Solaris, visit: http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/open_source_apps.jsp

(Q): The Sun One Web server that comes with Solaris 10. If it is used for internal Web sites does Sun require purchasing maintenance and support? Or is this only required by Sun for Internet facing Web servers?
Fred Rehhausser (A): Previously called the Sun One Web Server, the Sun Java Web Server that comes integrated with Solaris 10 is free for commercial use for as long as you want, for whatever you want. If you would like to run this in a "supported" environment, you are welcome to purchase a service contract from Sun.

(Q): Randy have you installed Bugzilla on 10? I'm having an awful time installing it on 9, specifically, getting the Perl modules to compile?
Randy Fishel (A): I had installed Bugzilla on an early release of S10, but not recently. I don't recall having trouble specifically with Bugzilla, but I do know that there are some interesting issues with installing Perl modules. Most folks don't have the Sun Studio compiler, but instead try to use GCC. And a full Solaris install will include a version of GCC in /usr/sfw. The problem is that trying to compile Perl modules to use with the Solaris distributed Perl requires that some Makefile.PL arguments be cleared first. So when you run the Makefile.PL, run it as follows: perl Makefile.PL 'OPTIMIZE= ' 'CCFLAGS= ' 'CCCDLFLAGS= ' Alternately, I also have found that many Perl modules install into Solaris fine if Webmin's 'Perl Modules" is used. It also allows for the display of existing installed Perl modules. More information on Webmin can be found at http://www.webmin.com Hope this helps!

(Q): Is there or will there continue to be substantial differences between the Open Source of Solaris 10 and the Solaris 10 versions that come pre loaded on Sun servers and workstations?
Fred Rehhausser (A): Open Source of Solaris 10 contains most of the content of Solaris 10. In addition, new features of Solaris are typically added to Open Solaris before they are available in the preloaded versions of Solaris 10. These are features like ZFS and Solaris Containers for Linux applications. So there are differences due to the fact that Open Solaris is a preview of coming attractions for the next upgrade of Solaris.

(Q): Hello, For an average open-source application compiled using open-source compilers under Solaris 10 and under Linux, will Solaris run this application relatively faster or slower than Linux, assuming identical hardware? Does this answer change if Sun Studio is used (on either platform)?
Josh Berkus (A): I can't answer for all OSS applications, but I've been doing a fair amount of testing with applications related to PostgreSQL.... When GCC is used for compiling, the performance is generally better on Linux because GCC has been optimized for Linux for years. If GCC is used on Linux, and Sun Studio on Solaris, performance generally balances, with specific applications being faster or slower depending on what OS features they are designed to take advantage of.

(Q): I hear you say, "so there are differences due to the fact that Open Solaris is a preview of coming attractions for the next upgrade of Solaris". Therefore, is it "safe" to use Open Source Solaris as a test bed system to implement new Solaris features, such that they will be tested and "ready for production", when the next Solaris upgrade comes out?
Fred Rehhausser (A): Absolutely. In fact, we encourage early access to the bits to help developers and commercial customers to get a headstart in incorporating the latest and greatest expected in future updates of Solaris.